Body composition help

A 6 pack is very difficult to maintain, and most of the men I know who have them have to cycle bulking and cutting to maintain them, which means they're often not visible.

I know a few guys who have them visible all year round without bulking/cutting, but they're young professional dancers and MMA fighters who exercise and do core strength work for a living. Even then, many of them don't have 6 packs because genetics plays a huge role as to how large and visible those specific muscles can get.

That's not to say you can't see improvement and more definition over time. You're already at an amazing place, just having as flat a stomach as you have is really impressive. But perhaps instead of focusing on abs in particular, focus instead on the rest of the muscles in the torso, which can really improve your core strength, posture, and generally make you look way more ripped without having to cut as much as it takes to have a 6 pack.

My husband was all fixated on abs and not getting results he wanted until I got him into pilates. When he was focusing on abs, he was just making his stomach bigger unless he was cutting. I talked him into not focusing on building ab bulk and instead building everything around the abs with more core strength exercises that target smaller muscles. Now his whole torso has so much visible muscle, the overall esthetic is that he looks ripped, even if he doesn't have a 6 pack, and his stomach is actually flatter than when he put all that work into bulking his abs, because genetically, his abs protrude out. It's fun just to watch him move, his whole upper body just ripples as he moves around, especially his ultra-cut serratus anteriors. I love me some serratus anteriors I tell ya.

Play around with it. Body comp can be a lot of fun because there's a lot more to it than just 6 packs.

What's most important though is to find a routine you enjoy that you can sustain. My husband happens to love adding pilates to his routine, so that's why he sticks with it. The posture benefits have made it comfortable for him to convert to a standing desk, so that's even more fitness benefit.

Try to have fun with it. You already look amazing, so everything from here on out can be icing on the cake. Try to focus on what makes you happy and feel strong and excited, that's the best way to get optimal results, IMO.

Yeah, take a look at this guy:
https://assets.gqindia.com/photos/5cdc5b83de9b7e0eac8f45a2/master/w_1600,c_limit/0126-866x956.jpg

vs this guy:
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/ab/4b/fb/ab4bfb29c65dc45790a8a00cad5a7495.jpg

Getting ripped can look wildly different depending on your focus and your genetics. To me, it's the little muscles that make the difference between looking really overall athletic vs looking like you spend a lot of time in the gym on pecs and abs. Nothing wrong with either, they're just different outcomes and looks. But that second guy could have a thin layer of fat hiding his abs and still look frickin' shredded. Granted one is flexing almost every muscle and the other is relaxing, so there's that as well, but the point still stands that 6 packs aren't the only muscles that make you look strong, lean and fit.

But that's why I say to have fun with it. Don't get too fixated on one feature you don't like that's hard to perfect when your whole body is a playground of muscles that you can build and strengthen, and so many capacities and movements for your body to learn.

Don't be flaw-based with your approach, this isn't about punishing your body for not being good enough, it's about treating your body really, really well and seeing the fun and exciting ways in can change in response to that dedicated care.

By all means, if you want to do alternate-day fasting, go for it. However, I very recently read this study:

Templeman et al., A randomized controlled trial to isolate the effects of fasting and energy restriction on weight loss and metabolic health in lean adults. Science Translational Medicine. June, 2021.

The TL;DR being "Daily Energy Restriction Beats Alternate-Day Fasting for Fat Loss"

As a prior poster noted, achieving a visible 6-pack can be very difficult and maintaining it year-round is even harder. I know several people who have gotten there and then came to the conclusion that it's simply not worth sacrifice/effort.

Above all though, I wanna say congrats on your progress thus far! There are a ton of dudes who would kill to look the way you do now, so please don't think any less of yourself because you don't have a 6-pack. You look awesome. Keep up the good work, regardless of which path you choose...

Really nice to hear your update. You sound a lot happier. Sometimes just a little mindset shift is all it takes. It sounds like you already knew all of this, you just needed to be reminded of what you already knew.

Oh and on the pedantic side, calorie restriction increases autophagy and the increases in HGH from fasting is because HGH mobilizes fatty acids for fuel. Transient increases in HGH won't increase muscle gain. Given the limitations of muscle protein synthesis is limited to 30-40g (depending on L-Luceine content), spreading it to supply amino acids more frequently will provide a better opportunity to increase muscle protein turnover rates and increase muscle more.

As Alan Aragon always said, no one got jacked from fasting.

alexosborne996 wrote: »

I know keto has a big fan base, but very low carb depletes your glycogen stores, which if you're weight training both inhibits your workouts and also makes the muscle look flat, after all, each gram of glycogen carries with it around 3g of water and this causes the muscle cells to swell = more prominent muscles. The point i'm making is, even if you have underdeveloped abs, if they're flat and deflated, you're much less likely to see them under a layer of subcutaneous fat.

Also bear in mind that if your abs aren't developed either, they won't show through regardless of bodyfat percentage.

Increasing your carb intake and simply restricting calories will give you much better results in both muscle building capability and look. That's not just bro science or copying something out of a forum either, it's from personal experience and there is plenty of scientific research to back that up.

I ran keto for nearly a year when I was overweight about 5 years ago before starting a training programme as it was being touted as the best way to lose weight, but over the years I've worked out through trial and error that dropping carbs is not the be all and end all of fat loss, particularly if you're trying to gain muscle.

I don't know your reasons for sticking with keto, but it's always worthwhile looking at your other options and considering an alternative way forward, you may surprise yourself, I did.

If you read up a few post, he feels better on keto. I agree with most of your logic but if one feels better there may be better solutions like CKD or TKD, rather than just coming off of keto.